


Harry Potter and the Cautionary Tale

by Anna_Hopkins



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Star Wars Fusion, Alternate Universe - Star Wars Setting, Crack Treated Seriously, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Gen, Gratuitously Hot Voldemort, Master & Padawan Relationship(s), Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Rating May Change, Sassy Harry Potter, Sith Voldemort, not sure which of these is more accurate forgive me
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-17
Updated: 2020-09-22
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:21:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26514370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anna_Hopkins/pseuds/Anna_Hopkins
Summary: Harry Potter, Padawan learner of Albus Dumbledore, is waiting for his master in the ruins of a Sith temple on... somewhere. Harry had slept through the comm from the Council and neglected to read the briefing on his datapad."Wait here, padawan," Dumbledore had said. "I will retrieve the holocron for the Archives."For once, Harry really should have listened to him.
Relationships: Harry Potter & Tom Riddle | Voldemort
Comments: 23
Kudos: 107





	1. Harry Does Not Know Who

**Author's Note:**

> So I got into Star Wars over August and can't quite get out of it

It.. kind of bothered Harry to look at the stars and not recognize them.

Hyperspace was its own thing - very interesting, even if staring too long made him dizzy - but whenever they were on-planet somewhere for more than a few days, the differences started to get to him. Stargazing on Coruscant, with the special binoculars that cut through city haze and light pollution, was a habit he’d gotten into back in the creche; and even after promotion to Padawan at eleven, he spent more time at the Temple than away from it.

Here, with stars winking through the holes in the ceiling of a ruined Sith temple, Harry didn’t need binoculars, but the heavens were vast and unfamiliar and as unsettling as the Force around him. He closed his eyes against the sight and rolled onto his side, ignoring the dust that the motion stirred up from the old stone floor; when next he opened them, he was staring down the dark tunnel Dumbledore had gone down some hours earlier. “‘Wait here, Padawan,’ he says. ‘It will only take an hour,’ he says.”

They were supposed to be returning from the diplomatic mission in the Mid Rim - a barely successful mission, saved only by Harry’s diplomatic efforts after Dumbledore gave his  _ vaunted _ opinion on some moral quandary or another and offended the population -

Anyway. They were  _ supposed _ to be back on Coruscant by now, where Harry was reliably informed of his favorite meal being served in the refectory. But the Generous Albus Dumbledore, Jedi Master, just  _ had _ to donate his (and Harry’s) time to the acquisition of a Sith holocron for the Archives to curry favor with the esteemed Jocasta Nu ahead of the next Council meeting. So here they were.

(Harry fervently wished to be someone else’s padawan. Could you tell?)

The first rays of orange sunlight streamed through the holes in the temple walls, accompanied by a draft of dry air and a cloud of pale dust. Between coughing and wiping at his eyes, Harry remembered he’d seen that same sun set earlier. How long exactly were day cycles on this starsforsaken planet?

He tapped his comm. “Any progress, master?”

And waited.

“Ah, padawan, good morning,” came the airy reply a minute later. “I find myself engrossed in a most logical puzzle. The holocron is beyond the next door, guarded by an artifact of significant power; why, it may yet be responsible for the strange Force signature on this planet, if this old Jedi’s thoughts are rambling in the right direction.”

_ Translation: this won’t be done any time soon. _ “How long do you think it’ll be?”

“Alas, I cannot rightly say… perhaps an hour, perhaps another day.”

Harry dragged his hand down his face, leaving a smear of white behind. He eyed the extra ration bars that a flash of intuition had had him grabbing on the way out of the ship when they landed; he’d been so exhausted after the last mission that they were the only extra things he’d packed. The ship was several klicks from the site of the ruins on… whatever planet this was, too far away to go retrieve things to work on or read while he waited. Which left him to occupy himself with… rocks. Dust. Moss.

“Do try to meditate, Harry,” Dumbledore advised over the comm in his ‘sagely’ tone of voice. “The dark side of the Force is strong on this planet; we must remain vigilant against its corrupting influence at all times.”

“Yes, master,” Harry muttered, settling back against a broken column to do just that - for the next few minutes, anyway, while Dumbledore supervised him through their training bond to make sure he followed orders. (As if Harry had ever  _ not _ done as he was told, reluctantly or otherwise.) When he felt the Jedi Master’s attention turn back to the aforementioned ‘logical puzzle’, he summoned two of the ration bars from the side pocket of his pack just because he could - a bit of ‘frivolous’ use of the Force to indulge his boredom - and closed his eyes again, chewing sedately. He’d snuck a packet of chocolate chips along as well, but that would come later, if he had a craving.

Dumbledore had one thing right today: the Force on this planet was incredibly strange, and not just because it was so Dark. The deeper Harry went in meditation, the more he could sense it - a  _ pull _ , from somewhere underground, off-center from the planet’s core. It was strange, and unlike other Force-touched planets felt, and the longer Harry focused on that point of origin, the more it pulled at him, intriguing,  _ calling _ -

Harry retreated into the conscious world with a frustrated noise and stood up, hiking his pack over first one shoulder, then the other. Weeks of diplomacy on a knife’s edge, and he’d expected a hot meal on Coruscant and the moderate comforts of his own bed when it was done - not a blandly chewy rations bar and a stone-and-dirt floor. Dumbledore was mad if he thought Harry would spend another day in this drafty antechamber! He would just go back to the ship and get a few things, then return before Dumbledore noticed his absence, nothing difficult.

As if in recognition of his plan, that pull in the Force thrummed. Harry’s head whipped around to a small archway along the temple wall that he was quite sure hadn’t been there before.

Green eyes narrowed. Was he really going to wander a Sith ruin unsupervised? Rather than behave like the good little Padawan he’d been for the past ten years?

...Well. When he put it that way.

_ Kriff it. _ Harry had rations enough for three days, easy. He was going exploring.

Half of a day-cycle into his adventure, part of Harry was still waiting for the other shoe to drop: he descended further and further underground, meandering through the temple’s ancient corridors with no rush toward his destination. Even without the meditation Dumbledore insisted upon every time he checked in over the comm, the walk was a relaxing one.

Meditating  _ did _ give Harry a clearer path to the source of the Force anomaly pulling at his senses, however, so it wasn’t entirely wasted. It was somewhere here, on the seventh basement level, so steeped in the Dark that Harry’s breath fogged in the corridor’s still air. He pulled his black blanket around him as a makeshift cloak and continued on his way.

The last Jedi to explore this temple had only mapped down five levels; Harry didn’t know why the door the explorers had noted down as ‘completely sealed’ opened for him, but he didn’t worry about it. More interesting was the observation that the sixth level only followed some of the architectural patterns of the five preceding it - Harry suspected it was older than the rest of the complex. The stone staircase down to the seventh level was worn with innumerable footsteps, the center of each step rounded down to convex, and Harry spotted more than one bloodstain on the wall, faded with time. He paused at the bottom and wondered in whose footsteps he was following.

The archway opened onto a cavernous space like nothing Harry had ever seen. The thick column that had marked the center of each floor was missing; in its place was a pit, walled on seven sides by stairs, and lit just enough by glowing crystals that Harry could safely descend to the very bottom if he so chose. Could it be a duelling hall, he wondered? A meetingplace?

The center of the arrangement, though, was dark, too dark to see. When Harry reached out in the Force, he found it Dark there, too - the source of the visceral pull he was feeling. For the first time, Harry considered the possibility of the holocron above-ground being a decoy for the real thing. Or were there two holocrons? Or more?

Each footfall of his boots echoed too loudly in the room; were it not so cold, he’d have shed the damn things. Some Force users could warm themselves with it, but Dumbledore had never taught Harry the skill, if he even knew it. Actually setting foot on the flat stone at the bottom was like wading shin-deep into chilled water, and Harry grit his teeth against the ache in his ankles, praying he wouldn’t get frostbite.

He set down his pack at the edge of the space, drew his lightsaber, and flicked it on as a makeshift lantern-

And flinched back, shocked, at what he saw.

“Hello, young one,” sighed the squinting man half-buried in the floor. “Kriff, that’s bright. I don’t suppose you’ve brought wine?”

Three stories up in the ancient Sith ruins, Albus Dumbledore stepped triumphantly through a wall of alchemical flames and found himself before a tall golden mirror.

Harry sputtered, confused beyond words. “W-Why would I have  _ wine?” _ he asked the man - if it even  _ were _ a man and not some kind of construct, hallucination, or Sith ghost. “And - how are you alive down here?”

The man stared at him for a moment. Then, he began to laugh. The high, rasping sound, more disused than his speaking voice, grated horribly on Harry’s ears; he cringed, and hastened to retrieve his oversized water flask from his pack and pass it to him. The man went silent in an instant to drink greedily from the gallon-sized container, throat working for long minutes. When he set it down with a satisfied noise, it was half-empty. “Ah.. much obliged, young apprentice.”

“How did you go without - oh, right, the Force.” Harry had heard of Jedi Masters using Force energy to supplement or replace food and water during extended trances and meditation.

Dark eyes glittered, amused, in the blue ‘saber light. “To answer your question,” the man smirked, sipping intermittently from the flask, “wine is the traditional libation of my visitors - or it was,” he supposed. “Few have remembered it, of late.”

“Oh. Erm, sorry.” Harry scratched the back of his neck. “I didn’t know. I only brought water, rations, and - chocolate chips? If you like those?”

The interested expression on the man’s face told Harry that yes, he did. He dug the bag of morsels out of his pack, but not before taking a handful for himself. “Selfish,” the man observed, sounding.. approving?

As an afterthought, Harry took out the portable lantern from his pack and set it up - far safer illumination than the lightsaber he was returning to its holster. “Do you get a lot of visitors here?” Harry wondered, stuffing the chocolate chips into his mouth as he sat back down.

“Fewer than I once did,” his mysterious host allowed. “Every Sith of age has made a pilgrimage here before bleeding his first kyber, to meditate on the price the Force exacts for those things we most fervently demand of it.”

“Well that explains it, then. I’m not a Sith apprentice; I’m a Jedi padawan.”

He glanced up to meet the man’s eyes in time to see them flicker yellow in a way not attributable to the lantern-light. “Implausible,” the Sith dismissed. “The path only opens to one immersed in the Dark Force within this temple.”

“I…  _ did _ meditate a lot here,” Harry thought aloud. And now that he was thinking of it, wasn’t he supposed to be cold? Because he wasn’t.

The Sith shook his head. “Let’s say I accept that explanation for the time being. Tell me, apprentice-”

“I’m a padawan-”

“What’s your name?”

“Harry Potter.”

“And you, Harry Potter, have no idea who I am.”

“None, sir.” Was ‘sir’ too polite? This was a Sith. Harry hadn’t studied protocol for Sith. 

“Bloody kriffing hell.” The man dragged a hand down his face, leaving little white lines where his nails caught. He downed the last of the water from the flask and set it down hard on the stone beside him with a sigh. Flinching at the noise, Harry’s eye caught on hundreds of wine bottles piled up behind the Sith, along the stairs, only visible now because of the lamplight. Even those nearest him were greyed with dust.

“How do you know modern slang, anyway?” Harry thought aloud. “This temple’s been abandoned for a thousand years.” At least a thousand.

“Commune long enough with the Force, Harry, and you’ll learn all sorts of things.” Oh, right. Meditation was probably the only thing keeping the Sith marginally sane, stuck in the ground as he was.

Speaking of which. “How  _ did _ you get stuck in the ground here?”

A small smile crossed the man’s face; it made him look particularly pretty, Harry noticed, then tried to un-notice. “Would you know, I haven’t ever gotten to tell it before? Everyone has always known.” He sat up straighter, assuming a formal posture - as formal as one could get with just their torso, anyway. Harry’s attempt to match him obviously pleased the Sith. “Do you know the greatest wish of all Sith, Harry?”

He shook his head.

“Immortality,” the man informed him. “There is no legacy that lasts beyond death, that stands against time. Power, that which every Sith craves, can only be held onto if you live.

“And so: immortality is reinvented every millennium or so, all manner of different ways, before and after my imprisonment here - I have seen the attempts of those after me, whether they succeed or fail. Some methods are quite ingenious; a current plot… but I digress.

“In my age, I forsook short-term power and influence in favor of research into an immortality unlike that of anyone before me: that would preserve my body, my strength, rather than decay it as many Sith are decayed. I was not satisfied with the consequences of others’ mistakes - I would not be a wraith, nor insane, nor fall into stasis. I sought  _ eternity, _ Harry, and I communed with the Force on this planet to demand it. You would not know of Sith alchemy, would you?” Harry shook his head. “I thought not. I will leave out the details, then. Ultimately, the Force did grant my demand - but took advantage of the one thing I had not considered, so intrinsic was it to my concept of existence: it trapped me here, half-buried, and if I were ever to pull myself out, I would disappear.”

Harry glanced at the ground, eyebrows raised. “And you never just.. you know..?”

The Sith looked at him, aghast. “And  _ die? _ I would  _ never.” _

Only politeness, instilled in him in the créche and honed with years of counteracting Dumbledore’s bumbling, kept Harry from laughing out loud. “You’re afraid of death even  _ now? _ You haven’t gotten bored of living? There’s - there’s even an afterlife, you know, in the Force-” it was the one thing Dumbledore was best versed in, the Way of the Whills, though he had yet to bring Harry to Jedha to see it for himself. “‘No death, but the Force.’ He calls it the ‘next great adventure.’”

This earned him a grimace. “Afterlife, my buried  _ foot. _ I cannot believe you  _ buy _ that drivel.”

“Well, I don’t, really,” Harry admitted with a shrug. “The Code, yeah, but not the adventure part. Master Dumbledore’s silly in the head.”

“Why would you follow a madman when you could kill him and usurp his position?”

Harry choked on his own spit. “That’s- not how it works,” he coughed. “Sure, he’s mad, but every Jedi Master is a little bit mad. It’s practically tradition. And I’m supposed to go for my Trials in less than a year - I’ll be independent of him once I’m Knighted, so killing him doesn’t accomplish a single thing that can’t be gotten just by waiting. I’d just be kicked out of the Order.”

“They would cast you out?” The Sith’s alarmed question was interrupted by Harry’s comm chiming.

_ “Harry,” _ came Dumbledore’s voice, concerned,  _ “are you still in the temple? The Force on the planet has shifted, and your presence was obscured to me.” _

“I am, master,” Harry answered truthfully. “I was meditating and fell asleep,” he lied.

A sigh. “Very well, my padawan. It would seem this last obstacle is the most formidable; I will contact you when I have the holocron that we may regroup in the antechamber.”

“How long do you think, master?” Harry caught the Sith rolling his eyes every time he used the title.

“Patience, my boy,” chided Dumbledore. “Take guidance in the Force.”

_ Translation: A long time. _ Now it was Harry’s turn to roll his eyes. “I will, master,” he said, closing the comm.

When he looked back up, the Sith was leaned forward on his elbows, chin propped up in his hands. “He’ll be there for years, you know. My holocron isn’t moving from its spot until  _ I _ am. And,” a chuckle, “that isn’t happening.”

An idea occurred to Harry. “What if you dug up the area around you and floated it with the Force?”

The Sith snorted. “I’m not literally buried, Harry, I’m fused into the planet. That would just count as uprooting me and be fatal.”

“Couldn’t someone just.. pull you out? If they wanted to get rid of you?” Harry wondered suddenly.

“Of course not,” the man snapped, “that would be silly-” He glared at Harry, who had gotten to his feet and was stepping closer, curious.

“No hard feelings,” Harry told the Sith, “but if I have to wait until Dumbledore gets that holocron, and the only way it moves is if you do…”

“Admirably ruthless,” the Sith began-

“Think of it this way, you said no one can pull you out, right?” Harry hooked his arms underneath the Sith’s armpits, heedless of the way he struggled under his grip. “So you’ll just get to laugh at me when nothing… happens…”

Except he’d just picked the Sith up and pulled him out of the ground like he weighed nothing, shocked red eyes staring up at him as he did.

“What-” the Sith stammered. “How-” He rolled over on the ground, looking at his legs in horror. They were nice legs, not at all what Harry would’ve expected given how long the Sith hadn’t been using them.

“How about that,” Harry mused. “You’re not dead.”

“I- I  _ know,” _ said the Sith in wonderment. Shakily, he climbed to his feet - oh, wow, he was taller than Harry. “I’m  _ alive.” _ The neutral, almost bored expression that had been on his face most of the time was now split with a wide, toothy grin. “Harry,” he said, stepping closer. “You’ve  _ saved _ me.”

Harry made to step back, but found himself swiftly enclosed in strong arms, pulling him flush against a remarkably solid body. The Sith was giggling, squeezing him in his arms. “Darling,” he breathed in Harry’s ear, “my savior, my darling boy-”

“I’m twenty,” Harry informed him through the constriction on his lungs. “Don’t call me boy-”

He was ignored, as the Sith was full-out laughing now, swinging Harry around in glee. “I’m  _ free,” _ he shouted up at the ceiling.

Harry was beginning to be concerned. And dizzy. “Put me  _ down,” _ he demanded, pushing at the Sith’s unreasonably solid arms.

“Oh, fine,” the Sith sighed, in too good a mood to protest, apparently. He set Harry down and combed his hair back into place with his fingers. Just in time: Harry’s comm chimed again.

_ “Something has happened,” _ Dumbledore was saying, his holo-figure moving swiftly enough to billow his robes.  _ “I have retrieved the holocron, and the planet is shifting significantly in the Force. We must be on our way to Coruscant at once to report this - I will meet you on the ship-” _ Static cut through the feed, and it shut off.

“Looks like I’m going, then,” Harry informed the Sith, who was doing a little circle dance around the space where he’d been sitting for so long. “No one lives on this planet, so if you want to leave-”

The Sith was on him in a second, looping his arms around Harry’s waist. “My dear Harry,” he breathed against his ear, “there is nothing at this moment I desire more.”

Stepping out of the embrace with reddened cheeks, Harry summoned his pack and his lantern to him with the Force. “No time to waste, then,” he stated the obvious. “We’ve got to get to the  _ Greater Good _ before Dumbledore-”

The Sith barked out a laugh.  _ “That’s _ the name of your ship?” He followed closely behind Harry on the way out of the temple, the upper levels of which felt a lot warmer than they had on the way down.

“Dumbledore has shit taste,” Harry shrugged, “but it’s what’s getting us out of here, so I wouldn’t speak too badly of it.”

They reached the archway that had gotten Harry into this mess in the first place, and crossing it, Harry felt a sudden vacuum in the Force, as though it had completely disappeared. He turned sharply in alarm to check that the Sith was still there - and he was. “Did  _ you _ do that?” he asked.

“Surely even the Jedi know how to hide their Force presence,” the man scoffed.

Harry stopped dead in the middle of the temple antechamber. “Wait. Your Force presence… is the size of this planet.”

He received an unimpressed look. “Does that really surprise you? I’m thousands of years old.”

“Are you telling me it  _ correlates?” _

“To some degree, I would assume. Midichlorians have a life cycle, Harry, their population increases eventually.” He leaned, nonchalant, against the crumbling wall. “Ask any immortal Sith-”

“You’re the  _ only _ immortal Sith,” Harry snapped, gesticulating so wildly he moved some of the loose rubble.

Slowly, a wide, terrible grin spread across the Sith’s face. “Am I now,” he mused, rubbing his hands together.

“In fact, you’re the only Sith I’ve ever met at  _ all,” _ Harry went on. “Your kind are - a legend. A  _ myth.” _

“Is that so?” The man was beaming.

“Yes, so-” Harry’s eyes narrowed. “Oh, hells. There’s more of them out there, aren’t there?”

“Probably,” he hedged, doing a terrible job of looking innocent. “The Dark doesn’t just  _ disappear, _ Harry. The Force maintains a balance.”

“Not just probably, by the expression on your face,” Harry frowned. “You’re sensing them, somehow, aren’t you? Like how I can sense other Jedi nearby.”

“How well you know me,” the Sith smiled fondly, looming over him. He laid his hands on Harry’s shoulders. “Come now, my dear, let us be off this dreadful planet.” With that, he set off in the direction of the ship, never mind that Harry hadn’t told him where it was.

“I’m not your  _ padawan,” _ Harry snarked as he matched the man’s stride. “Kriff, I don’t even know your name.”

“Of course you aren’t, Harry,” the Sith purred, slinging an arm around his shoulders. “Lord Voldemort only takes apprentices.”

“Oh stars, he’s talking in the third person,” Harry groaned.


	2. Harry Regrets Being A Good Samaritan

Harry could have _sworn_ it was a two-hour walk to the temple from the landing site, but with Voldemort leading the way, the return trip was noticeably shorter. "Are you.. messing around with spacetime over there?" he asked the Sith, suspicious.

The Dark Lord rolled his eyes, levitating Harry up over a fallen log before he could trip on it. (For the record, Harry did _not_ appreciate being carried like luggage.) "Of course not, I just know the terrain better than you do. Really, Harry, you would expect me to make such frivolous use of the Force-" he cracked up, leaning against the nearest tree, before he could finish his sentence. Every time he looked up at Harry's unimpressed face, he doubled over again, cackling louder.

"So that's a 'yes', then," Harry noted, pushing past Voldemort into the clearing where the _Greater Good_ sat ready for launch.

It wasn't a large ship like the one Dumbledore favored for longer missions, the _Phoenix;_ there was just one spare room beyond their separate quarters, and it was currently full of trade goods the Jedi Master had picked up on the way back from the diplomatic mission. Harry knew at least half of what they'd stowed away was earmarked for one Horace Slughorn, Dumbledore's preferred informant on Coruscant.

And speaking of stowing away.

"You're going to have to hide in my room," Harry realized, facepalming. "All the smuggling hatches are full." He pushed the last one closed with his boot and turned on his heel down the hallway, Voldemort close on his heels.

Harry's cabin was the only room Dumbledore generally avoided, whether they were on missions or in-Temple, ever since he'd walked in on Harry- _never mind, not important, new train of thought time._

"Oh, this is nice," the Sith remarked once the door opened, looking in over Harry's head. He ran a hand through Harry's hair as he walked past him into the room.

Harry stood in the doorway a moment, eyes closed, to cast off his flustered feelings into the Force. Then he headed into the room, locking the door behind him - it wouldn't do to be overheard if Dumbledore showed up early. Voldemort's little Force trick meant they had about an hour's lead on the Jedi Master.

"Are you going to use the 'fresher?" he inquired of Voldemort, who had his head in the door. "It has a sonic shower - you do know how to use one of those, right?" He'd probably used some Force trick to remain clean in the temple, given that he couldn't move, but they were both now very dusty from the walk.

The Sith went in, closing the door behind him, but it wasn't soundproofed like the rest of the walls were. Harry heard a muffled, "so _this_ is a sonic," and then, "Fascinating. I will try it." The lock clicked shut.

Harry took a moment to center himself in the Force, clearing his mind of stress - or as close as he could get to clearing it, given that Voldemort was in his refresher unsupervised. Should he have gone in to explain how to use the sonic? Should he go and explain it now-?

(-and likely interrupt Voldemort in the middle of undressing to _use_ the sonic-)

"Ah, Harry, there you are," Dumbledore chuckled when Harry went out to the common area to greet him. "I trust you were safe, if discontent?" One blue eye winked, and Harry winced, caught out on his unspoken irritation from earlier.

"I was glad I brought extra rations bars, Master," he supplied, which was true - and a not-quite evasion of the question that flew under the radar of Dumbledore's overdeveloped lie-detection skills.

(It was all too possible that Dumbledore was training him to speak this way on purpose - to make his speech so convoluted and vague that the Council would appoint him to their ranks on sheer merit.)

"Excellent," said the Jedi Master, unaware of Harry's thoughts. "In that case, let us be off..."

And they began the twelve-hour flight to Coruscant.

Once in hyperspace, Harry set about making Dumbledore's tea in the kitchen; he cradled a second cup in his palms while he made the sort of small talk one did upon conclusion of a mission, which was to say, nothing of importance, and eventually excused himself to his cabin for the rest of the trip. This was what was expected of him, the habits of years.

He carried his untouched teacup down the hallway, thinking fondly of his bed; a shower and a nap would do just fine, yes-

He almost dropped the cup when he opened the door to Voldemort snoozing in his bed. Shirtless. Possibly more than shirtless.

And having left plenty of room for Harry to join him under the sheets.

_Nope. Nope, nope, nope._ Harry set the teacup down on his desk, deliberately not looking at his bed or the too-handsome Sith occupying it. He kicked off his boots and went to the closet for sleepwear to change into after he used the 'fresher.

Normally he had a system, a pattern, an order for disrobing; boots, gloves, bracers, belt, over-robe, tunic, trousers, and so on, laid out on his desk or tossed in the laundry bin as needed. Harry reached for his bracers (he hadn't any gloves) to begin this ritual, but then remembered his audience, and hid in the 'fresher instead. The bleak white light over the mirror made it clear just how much dust and dirt he'd accumulated on the mission; Harry could only imagine how much work it would be for the cleaning droids once they docked in the Temple hangar.

The sonics got most of the dust that had gathered in his hair and eyebrows, but Harry eagerly anticipated a water shower in-Temple later to get the parts he was sure were left. _Voldemort could use a water shower, too,_ came the idle thought-

Which only gave Harry ideas of the Sith in a towel, particularly detailed thanks to the eyeful he'd gotten a few minutes ago. Harry banished those thoughts to the Force with a firm _no._ There would be none of that in his head, thanks.

Of course, then he came out of the 'fresher in his pyjamas to find Voldemort quite awake and sprawled out invitingly on the bed, which negated any hope Harry had had that the Sith hadn't seen his book of flimsis. "Come and rest, Harry," he smirked, patting the available space on the sheets.

"I'd rather not," said Harry stiffly, averting his eyes. "Can't you sleep on the floor or something? There's plenty of space. I even have a spare pillow."

A low chuckle. "But I'm so very comfortable, dear savior. Won't you join me?"

Harry looked back up and flushed bright red: the sheets had ridden down to reveal more skin. Stars, was he-?

As if he'd read his mind, Voldemort snorted. "The invitation to sleep with me is _literal,_ Harry. And for your information I _am_ wearing leggings." He pulled the sheets down lower to reveal, yes, tight black fabric. "You're too easy to tease."

"Are those _mine,"_ Harry choked out, glaring into amused red eyes.

"If they are, you should wear more black," Voldemort told him, stretching sinuously out on the bed.

"Black is a Sith color," Harry protested, coming to stand beside the bed. "And you'd better not steal my pillow."

"Have it your way, apprentice," Voldemort dismissed, shimmying back to give him more room.

_"Padawan,"_ Harry muttered, but he was too tired to really argue the point, not when he had the bedding up to his chin and his head on his pillow...

_Good night, Harry,_ the Sith murmured as he drifted off.

He woke up hours later to the chime announcing they were entering Coruscant airspace and Dumbledore's prodding along their training bond. "Mneh," Harry grumbled into the sheets, tucking his face closer against the warm pillow he held in his arms.

Low chuckling and fingers carding through his hair startled him into full awareness. Harry sat up abruptly, realizing with horror that his pillow was alive and highly entertained. "Get," Harry pushed at the Sith's damnably firm chest, "I have to use the sonics real quick-"

He left Voldemort sprawled over the mussed bedding, grinning like the madman he was, and fled into the 'fresher, tossing his sleep robes onto the floor. Harry hated having to crank up the sonics too high - it felt like sand on his skin - but there was no time to waste, not when they'd be docking in the Temple hangar within the hour. "You're going to have to sneak out when we land," he called to the Sith through the open doorway. "Coruscant is a huge city, though, I'm sure it'll be easy."

After all, Harry snuck out of the Temple all the time.

"Ah, Coruscant," the Sith sighed, just audible over the sonics. "It has been a long time, but the planet feels much the same as it ever did... why, there's a temple of our own here, beneath the surface. Can you feel it?"

"What- there's no 'our' anything, need I remind you I'm a Jedi?" Harry scrubbed furiously at his messy hair, paying particular attention to his now-unwound Padawan braid where it draped over his shoulder. Soon, he was turning off the shower and reaching for his sleepwear again. "That aside - where exactly is this Sith temple you're talking about?"

A shadow fell over the doorway, interrupting Harry's thoughts of how he might 'discover' the Sith temple on Coruscant for brownie points with Dumbledore and the Council. Voldemort was leaning against the archway with his arms crossed. "You'll see soon enough," the Sith promised, "as we are landing right over it."

Harry pulled the belt of his robe tight with a bit more force than necessary, glaring at him. "A bit of privacy, if you please," he bit out.

The Sith rolled his eyes. "You say that like you expect me to be looking. What have you got worth ogling, Harry?"

He sputtered, lost for words. "I.. just.. augh! Get back in the other room! I could hear you just fine from there!" Laughing, Voldemort did. Now to focus on re-weaving his braid; white ribbon, gold bead, wooden bead, red fastening... he pushed his annoyance into the Force again, paring his attention down to the braiding process.

Once it was completed, he tossed it back over his shoulder, and returned to the other room - where Voldemort was waiting for him with a set of black robes laid out on the bed. "No," said Harry flatly, pushing past him toward the closet.

"Harry." Cool air raised goosebumps on the back of his neck, chilling him right through his robe. He stilled in front of the closet's open doors, the clothes within which showed obvious signs of being shuffled about. "I insist."

This was, Harry was reminded, an immortal Dark Lord of the Sith. Their banter did not negate the fact of Voldemort's planet-sized Force presence, which Harry thought he could almost feel, straining against whatever technique the Sith used to disguise it the way he did. He swallowed, and turned around, meeting red eyes now flecked with gold.

"I.. the Council will..." Words of protest died in his throat. Harry bit his lip, unable to avert his gaze. Why couldn't Voldemort _understand?_ If he didn't wear the usual white, didn't act the same as he always did-

"What does it matter, though?" asked Voldemort softly, coaxingly. "If you wear this color in an age without Sith?”

Harry swallowed. "What if it's just the inner layers," he offered, glancing at the robes laid on the bed.

Somehow, this pleased the Sith. The cold retreated from Harry's skin, and he quickly shed the pyjamas in favor of the black inner robes before Voldemort changed his mind. There was a strange charge in the air, a solemnity, in this moment that Harry was not keen on disturbing; he kept his protests about privacy and modesty to himself, doing up the fastenings on the tunic, and when he turned to the closet to retrieve an over-robe, this time Voldemort did not stop him.

Instead, the Sith surveyed Harry's appearance with something like approval on his face. Harry turned to the mirror beside the closet doors, scrutinizing his appearance, and found it similar enough to how he usually looked, now, that he wouldn't catch anyone's eye.

Just then, the ship landed. "All right," Harry turned back to Voldemort, "safe travels to you, and all that." He hoped his smile wasn't too strained. _May our paths never cross again, et cetera, et cetera._

He rejoined an especially jolly Dumbledore in the main corridor of the ship and followed the Jedi Master out to the Council chamber, and let slip from his mind the strange smirk that he'd seen in his last glimpse at the Sith's face.

This Council debrief was taking forever. They always took forever, but today was worse. Harry was too proper to say anything, even to Dumbledore, but _stars_ did they really need to spend this much time on the _boring_ part of the diplomatic visit? He resisted the urge to fidget with his robes, rocking back slightly on his heels.

From the glazed expressions on other Councillors' faces, Dumbledore's long-windedness was putting the whole room to sleep. Harry recognized the tactic after years of knowing the Jedi Master: he was going to bore them so much with this part that no one would protest when he skimmed over details yet to come - when the conflict caused by Dumbledore's tactless speech was 'mysteriously' resolved overnight. (Read: Harry spent the night drinking with the royal prince and 'accidentally' let slip that Dumbledore was an idiot, his bumbling was not representative of the Council, and the proposal set forth at the beginning of the meeting would be more than satisfactory to both parties.)

He suppressed a sigh, and let his mind wander to more interesting things. Such as: had his crechemates, Ron and Hermione, really gotten together since he last saw them, like those initiates they'd passed in the corridor were muttering? Who had won the last duelling tournament in the salle? Did Initiate Kenobi get promoted yet or was the Council still hemming and hawing over who would teach him? Why had Voldemort coerced Harry into wearing Sith colors, and why - besides the implicit threat of violence - had Harry let him?

"..minor setback that was resolved just as quickly, leading to a renewal of the Council's treaty with the people of Edeni II..." Harry blinked, glanced to Dumbledore, and stifled his irritation. Yes, he _had_ just brushed over Harry's better achievements during the months they'd spent on that humid planet. He fisted his hands in his sleeves where no one could see them, as releasing emotion to the Force within the Council chamber would only attract their attention.

"Yes, satisfactory it was," hummed Grand Master Yoda, thankfully cutting off more of Dumbledore's waffling before Harry's brain melted out his ears. "Took a detour, you did, on the return trip. Tell us, you will, of the holocron you recovered, hm?"

"Ah, yes, a most fruitful endeavor!" Dumbledore's eyes sparkled behind his glasses. "Harry and I stopped over on the planet Mordera VII to retrieve a Sith holocron from its ruins for Madame Nu. We are pleased to inform the Council of its successful retrieval."

"Have it with you, do you, Albus?"

"Yes, right in my pocket-"

Harry stifled a grin at the most inappropriately-timed mental image of Dumbledore fumbling and dropping the holocron to shatter in thousands of pieces on the Council floor. From the glance Mace Windu shot him, he hadn't hidden it quite well enough, but then his Master was holding up the gleaming black polyhedron for everyone to see.

It was the first time Harry had seen the holocron - Dumbledore hadn't shown it to him earlier - and he couldn't take his eyes off of it. A faint greenish glow seemed to emanate from within the pyramid, pulsing like a heartbeat; Harry could almost _hear_ it, a deep hum drowning out everything else in the room, like a voice-

He flinched when the holocron was covered by a layer of grey fabric and passed into the hands of Jocasta Nu, who must have come over while Harry wasn't paying attention. More than one Councillor was eyeing him from their elevated chairs: there must have been something showing in his face, he thought, clasping his hands behind his back and standing straighter.

"Conclude for the day, we shall, unless pressing matters to discuss, someone has?" Yoda inquired of the room. No one addressed Harry's slip in composure, so the gimer stick cracked loud on the floor to mark the end of the meeting. Harry bowed accordingly, and turned to leave-

Only for the doors to open in a wash of familiar, cold air, admitting a figure in a hooded black cloak.

_Kriffing Sith hells,_ Harry thought. Then, _where did he get a wardrobe change from this fast, anyway?_

"My greetings, Jedi Council," Voldemort offered warmly as he Force-sealed the doors shut. "If I might have a moment of your time before you all depart, there is a matter I would bring to your attention: namely, that you are in possession of something that belongs to me."


	3. Harry Resents Being Spoken For

Harry had half-expected the room to burst into absolute chaos at that proclamation; that it didn't could be credited at least in part to lethargy from Dumbledore's speech. The tension in the room was undeniable, though: every Councillor, even the ones only present as holograms, was reaching for their lightsaber as Voldemort swept grandly into the center of the room and pulled down his hood. Someone gasped - they'd seen his eyes, then.

"Sith, you are!" exclaimed Yoda, who was hardly taller when standing on his chair than sitting in it.

The Dark Lord raised an eyebrow. Harry could tell, even though he was looking at his back. "I am Lord Voldemort, yes," he said slowly, as though addressing a youngling. "Is there a problem? I specifically waited until you were finished with your meeting to bring up this matter. As a fellow user of the Force-"

"The Jedi have no  _ fellowship _ with the Sith," spat Mace Windu, which Harry found ironic given the origins of his preferred saber form. A saber form which the Korun seemed keen on utilizing, as he'd ignited the purple blade. "You are not welcome here, darksider!"

Voldemort's unimpressed stance quite impressed Harry. "Goodness, the youth these days," he murmured loud enough for everyone to hear. "This is how you treat a guest? A diplomat? Have you no negotiator? For shame."

No one was saying anything (thrown off by his disgruntled, posh attitude, Harry suspected) so he continued, clasping his hands behind his back and pacing a circle on the floor, meeting the eyes of every Councillor as he passed. "I will pretend you have welcomed me properly, then, and state my business.

"As per the traditions known to all Force users," Voldemort gestured meaningfully with one hand - stars, he was dramatic - "I, the Dark Lord Voldemort, first of my independent lineage, and the Mors Mordera templemaster, am present to negotiate the return of my holocron-"

_ "Your _ holocron," scoffed Jocasta Nu under her breath where she was holding the cloth-wrapped artifact in question.

Voldemort stopped in his pacing before her chair, gaze snapping to the Chief Librarian. The air chilled considerably; Harry was the only one who didn't visibly shiver. "Yes,  _ my _ holocron, as in, I crafted it; that much will be obvious the moment you open it, if you have not already?" The last, he spoke of as though it was ridiculous they hadn't.

"Of course not," said Dumbledore.  _ Oh kriff, here we go again, _ Harry thought,  _ why do they let him speak? _ "The process of studying a holocron, especially a Sith holocron, cannot be rushed; any archivist can tell you as much."

Madame Nu, standing directly beside him, shot the Jedi Master a cool glare at being spoken for. "Indeed," she said stiffly.

Another eyebrow raise, this time directly visible to Harry where he stood between the chairs of Ki-Adi-Mundi and the white-knuckled Jocasta Nu. Voldemort's gaze flicked briefly to his, and he smirked. "Or, you could ask me to open it; I would be more than happy to share. Knowledge is power, and through power, one gains victory. Shall we discuss my terms, Madame Nu?"

"Enough, that is," said Yoda from the opposite side of the room. "Of the traditions you speak, we know not. Know of Mors Mordera, do we, as ancient ruins - templemaster, you cannot be."

Stars, this was going to go all night, wasn't it? Harry picked at the high white collar of his over-robes, glancing at the cloth-covered holocron in the Chief Librarian's lap. He wouldn't get to latemeal before the refectory closed, at this rate. Unless...

A fine thread of the Force plucked the holocron into the air and carried it into Voldemort's waiting hands. "Thank you, Harry," he said, exceptionally smug, and uncovered the pyramid again before hiding it away in his cloak. "My offer to lend out my holocron stands, of course. Now, let us proceed to the main reason for my visit-"

An icy tendril coiled about Harry's neck, coaxing him into the center of the room. Now everyone was really looking at him. "You have your holocron," he told the Dark Lord off, crossing his arms. "what else would you bother everyone about?"  _ Why didn't you just leave when I gave you the opportunity? _

Voldemort reached out and... booped him on the nose. His fingertip was surprisingly soft. "Why,  _ you, _ of course, Harry," he giggled, running his hand through Harry's hair and thumbing over the length of his braid.

"M- _ me?" _ Harry sent a pleading look at the Councillors within view. Behind him, he could hear Dumbledore's affronted, "how dare you take my Padawan hostage!"

Voldemort 'tsk'ed at the Jedi Master, reaching out to pull Harry closer so his back was to the Dark Lord's chest. "Harry is no  _ hostage, _ Dumbledore," he sneered. This close, Harry could smell him, a not-unpleasant earthy sort of scent like that of the red dust the sonics had washed off of Harry's skin, hours before. It brought up his memory of the bed they'd been sharing up until a short while ago. "How dare  _ you _ insinuate he is so weak as to be  _ taken _ hostage!"

He set his hands on Harry's shoulders, thumbing at the collar of his over-robe. "As templemaster of Mors Mordera," Voldemort announced to the room at large, "I am officially poaching Harry for an apprenticeship."

And to Harry's horror, he took hold of the white fabric and tore it in two halves down to the belt that held it at his waist - revealing the black layers underneath.

Oh, no.

Harry could feel the blood draining from his face as the Council's opinion of him visibly shifted. Even Dumbledore's gaze had sharpened, going from protective to suspicious in an instant -  _ exactly how Harry had expected it would. _

"Informing you as much is a mere formality," Voldemort was saying as Harry's world crashed down around him, "but I choose to observe the traditions as a matter of courtesy which you are obliged to return in kind."

Clasping his shaking hands in front of him, Harry opened his mouth to speak, then closed it, setting his jaw. There was nothing he could say that would redeem him in the eyes of the Council now. Hells, even if he  _ killed _ the Sith whose warm hands were rubbing his shoulders, which was more than likely impossible-

"My dear Harry," Voldemort murmured in his ear, "won't you tell them what you wish to say?"

At the same time, Mace Windu demanded, much louder, "Padawan Potter, would you care to explain what is going on?"

Harry swallowed, gaze flickering between the Dark Lord's hand sliding down his arm to interlace their fingers and the Council members waiting for him to answer. "Um," he began, fighting not to cringe under the looks he was getting, "I swear I am not pulling a Xanatos."

Someone behind them snorted, earning brief glances from the other Councillors. "Masters," Harry addressed the audience, though he could not bow with Voldemort practically plastered against him, "the temple on Mordera VII was not entirely empty."

"Say, you do not," Yoda deadpanned.

It occurred to Harry suddenly, the way most hilarious ironies did, that this was the first time he had addressed the Council himself in all the years he'd been a Jedi. Dumbledore had always spoken for him - it had always been annoying. Now, the spotlight was finally on him, except he didn't want it to be.

"Master Dumbledore had me wait in the first room of the Temple ruins on Mordera VII while he navigated the puzzles and traps guarding the holocron on the third floor," he began, detached, as though he were reciting a written report. "The process took multiple planetary days, during which I was instructed to meditate. During meditation, I began to feel a... pull," he couldn't think of a better way to describe it, "to a location beneath the temple, and after waiting for another planetary day cycle with no changes, I followed the pull to the seventh level, an area not mapped by those who scouted it in the past."

He took a breath. "There, I found this Sith Lord half-buried in the ground - were you meditating?" Harry tilted his head back to ask Voldemort, who nodded. "Right. Apparently the temple was built around him, millennia ago-"

"Site of the famous cautionary tale of the Sith quest for immortality," Voldemort added, by way of explanation.

"I spoke to him, surprised he was alive," Harry went on, "and accidentally freed him, though I do not know exactly how." Harry nodded his head to conclude his report in lieu of a formal bow.

Disbelief hung in the air, tangible in the Force. But then, from the same source as the earlier snort at Harry's attempted joke, Master Dooku addressed the room: "I have heard the tale of which the Dark Lord speaks." Murmuring ensued. "The Council is aware of my studies of Sith lore and apocrypha. The last mention of a Lord Voldemort in our records is nearly eight thousand years old."

"That would predate the Second Great Schism," said Madame Nu, astonished. "Such longevity is surely impossible-"

"It was meant to be impossible," Voldemort agreed over the whispering and murmuring of the councillors. "I alone have succeeded."

Discussion continued in the room, uninterrupted by Yoda or anyone else; in the reprieve from unilateral attention, Harry found himself turned around to face Voldemort. "Here you are, my dear," the Dark Lord smiled, tugging the torn white garment off of him and passing him its equivalent in black. Harry held the over-robe in his hands a moment to stare at it: it was the same robe he had left on his bed on the  _ Greater Good. _

"So this was your plan all along," he observed, but unfastened his utility belt to don the new robe all the same.

"Oh, don't pout," Voldemort's palm cupped Harry's cheek, tilting his chin up to meet his eyes. "Your insistence on the white made the reveal all the more theatric." He gave Harry a pat, then pulled his hand away. "And you look dashing in black, just as I thought you would."

Harry could feel his cheeks going pink, and chose not to dignify Voldemort with a response. He looked past the long line of Voldemort's black cloak to meet the eyes of Master Dooku, who was watching their interaction with what Harry interpreted as moderate interest. When Harry raised an eyebrow, so did the councillor; no words were exchanged between them, but it made Harry feel better somehow.

"If I may," Dooku spoke up, getting the Council's attention with ease. "I believe there to be a solution to this situation which satisfies all parties involved."

"An idea, have you, Yan?" Yoda leaned forward in his chair. "Share with the group, you will."

_ Is Yan his actual first name? _ Harry wondered, glancing at the Grand Master.

"Lord Voldemort has expressed his willingness to contribute to the Archives on several occasions during this meeting," the Master began, "and we have in the past received visiting practitioners of other forms of the Force as guests and scholars."

More muttering, this time louder than before. Harry resisted the urge to smile at Dooku, focusing his attention on Yoda (and ignoring the increasingly wide-eyed Dumbledore somewhere to his left). Voldemort, for his part, said nothing, a warm presence at Harry's back. The proposal seemed to be  _ popular _ with the Council - and after a few more minutes of discussion, Yoda struck the ground with his gimer stick for silence.

"What thinks the Council?" the Grand Master asked the room. "Harbor a Sith, will we?"

Apparently, they would.

"There remains the matter of my Padawan's poaching," Dumbledore spoke up afterward, voice tinged with complaint.

"Resolve at a later date, we will," Yoda declared. "Run long, this meeting has. Rest, eat, and think, we must."

"I thank you for your time," Voldemort said, standing straighter, and unsealed the doors with an absent gesture.

In the mass exodus of Jedi from the chamber that followed, both Dumbledore and Voldemort took up places at Harry's side. "My Padawan," Dumbledore began, just as Voldemort murmured, "my dear Harry-"

"What?" Harry looked at Voldemort, whose face lit up with a triumphant smirk.

The Sith slung his arm around Harry's shoulder again - Harry was growing accustomed to it. "Let's tour the Temple."

Admittedly, Harry had been looking forward to returning to his quarters, but as he let himself be guided away from the appalled Jedi Master and out of the chamber (shock rippled through the training bond, muted by Harry's inattention), he supposed it wouldn't be much different eating in the middle of the Temple as in the kitchen of his shared apartment. "All right," he offered Voldemort a small smile. "If we head down this hallway, we'll reach the refectory-"

"No, no," Voldemort chuckled, catching Harry up in a sweep of his cloak. He leaned in to mutter, conspiratorial, in Harry's ear.  _ "the _ Temple. Not this one."

Oh. Right. That.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic plays relatively fast and loose with Star Wars canon & legends. As I am still very new to that fandom, most of what I know comes from Wookieepedia, including the current place on the timeline. I'll be making up a fair bit as I go along to advance the plot, including these 'traditions' Voldemort speaks of (though he'll hopefully explain himself in the next chapter, now that he has Harry as his captive audience for a few hours).
> 
> In short, please continue to suspend your disbelief ♥ much obliged! I hope this is as fun to read as it has been to write.


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